Foreclosures at 42 month low – Good or Bad?

Delays in foreclosure proceedings and a new push by big banks and servicers to find foreclosure alternatives is drawing a new, albeit still troubling picture of the nation’s real estate market.

New notices of default, the first step toward foreclosure, fell to a level in May not seen since the end of 2006, according to a new report by online foreclosure site RealtyTrac. Bank repossessions, or REO, the final stage of foreclosure, also fell on a monthly basis for the second straight month. That pushed total foreclosure activity down 33 percent from a year ago.

“I really wish I could say that looking at a 42-month low in foreclosures action means that the housing market is recovering, and the foreclosure problems are all going away and we should all go about our business and be happy,” says RealtyTrac’s Rick Sharga. “Unfortunately, those would all be lies.”

The numbers have been on a roller coaster since the so-called “robo-signing” foreclosure paperwork scandal that unfolded last Fall. Now there are big discrepancies in the numbers state to state, depending on which states practice judicial foreclosures and which don’t. The foreclosure timeline is also increasing as more banks and loan servicers focus on short selling distressed properties, which is when the sale price is less than the value of the mortgage.

In judicial states, bank repossessions actually rose 1 percent month to month, as courts finally begin to get new paperwork and work through lawsuits. In New York, REO activity jumped a whopping 97 percent, and 21 percent in New Jersey.

Foreclosure filings fell 2% in May, compared with April, pushing foreclosure activity down to a 42-month low, according to RealtyTrac’s monthly foreclosure market report, released on Thursday.

Filings were reported on 214,927 properties last month, an amount that’s down 33% compared with May 2010, the firm reported. Filings include default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions.
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But the problems and delays in processing foreclosures continued to mask the true foreclosure picture, said James J. Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac, an online marketplace for foreclosure properties. The May numbers provided some clues of “what lies behind that mask.”

149 Responses to Foreclosures at 42 month low – Good or Bad?

And downward seems to be the current direction in both New Jersey and nationally.

According to the Case-Shiller Home Price Index released last week, single-family home prices in northern and central New Jersey in March were down 24.2 percent since their high point 2006 and down 3.4 percent compared to a year ago. Prices are now at January 2004 levels in the geographical area, which includes 14 counties in New Jersey north of Ocean County and other tri-state counties within commuting distance of New York City.

The picture is no brighter nationally. According to the Case-Shiller report prices fell 0.8 percent in March from the previous month in 20 large cities, pushing the price level of that index below the level of two years ago to a post-bubble low. That drop pushed the index level to 33 percent below its July 2006 peak.

There’s no mystery as to why prices have weakened. The causes are a slowing economic recovery, high unemployment, tight lending standards, a large inventory of unsold homes and the huge number of homes in foreclosure. The turnaround is not in sight. Just last month private sector hiring dropped precipitously and the U.S. factory sector, that was the biggest engine of the recovery, notched its biggest one-month decline in years. Until these negative factors change substantially for the better, a turnaround of home prices won’t occur. This kind of turnaround isn’t imminent.

As legions of underwater homeowners would testify, buying a home in a downward spiraling market can be a financial catastrophe.

While millions of U.S. homeowners have negotiated lower monthly mortgage bills in an effort to avoid foreclosure, Cecelia Kirchman happily added $250 to her payment when she refinanced last August.

Kirchman took out the new loan to reduce her interest rate to 4.5 percent from 7 percent, and slice the term in half to 15 years. She said she has paid down more principal in the past 10 months than in the previous six years of owning her home in the suburbs of Washington, D.C.

“It’s unbelievable,” said Kirchman, a marketing director for a financial-planning firm who lives in a ranch-style house in Frederick, Maryland, with her husband, Mark. “For very little more each month, I’m paying it off much more quickly.”

The couple are among the growing number of “equity builders” — creditworthy homeowners with steady jobs and enough cash to lock in near record-low interest rates and shorten the length of their loans, said Stuart Feldstein, president of SMR Research Corp., a market-research firm in Hackettstown, N.J., that focuses on financial services. Others are opting for what’s known as a cash-in refinancing, in which borrowers write a check at the closing to shrink the amount they owe on the property.

Foreclosure filings experienced their eighth straight month of declines, according to RealtyTrac.

In May, filings fell 33% from a year earlier and 2% month-over-month, according the online marketplace of foreclosed properties. The number of homes that were repossessed (referred to as REOs or real estate-owned properties) in May also declined to 66,879, down 3.8% from April and 29% year-over-year, the firm said.
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The banks don’t want to take on the expense of maintaining the homes — property taxes, heating costs, repairs and insurance — if they can’t sell them quickly.

Selling off the inventory of repossessed homes is crucial to the housing market, said Jim Gillespie, CEO of Coldwell Banker. Sold at steep discounts, REOs compete with new homes for buyers and have severely depressed new home sales.

“That’s a critical element for the economic recovery,” said Gillespie. “If new homes were selling anywhere close to their levels of five years ago, it would add a full point to the GDP.”

The state’s largest teachers union began its full counter attack against a pension and benefit reform plan and in the process Wednesday declared war on the Democratic Party it has long supported.

The comments came after the New Jersey Education Association unleashed the latest television ad, in a $2 million campaign, that attempted to tie Republican Gov. Chris Christie and Democratic state Senate President Stephen M. Sweeney with longtime political boss and former Camden County Democratic chairman George E. Norcross III.

“The Democratic Party has lost its way in terms of middle class values, with working people,” said Vincent Giordano, executive director of the NJEA. He predicted losses for the party in this year’s state legislative elections.

Gov. Chris Christie and leading legislators ended months of negotiations tonight by announcing an agreement to roll back pension and health benefits for public employees.

Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D-Gloucester) and Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver (D-Essex) have bucked members of their party by pushing forward with the plan, a signature issue of the governor’s, angering public employee unions that have long allied themselves with Democrats.
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“There have been months of serious discussions about this,” Christie said. “The issues are difficult and they are emotional ones.”

He said that the full Senate would vote on the compromise bill on Monday, and the Assembly would vote next Thursday.
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The legislation would force public employees to pay more for their pensions and health benefits and push back their retirement age. Although Christie and top Republicans have long pushed similar changes, tonight’s statement was their first public acknowledgment that they would back the Democrat-authored compromise legislation.
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“The NJEA is fiddling with our teachers’ money while Rome burns,” said Sweeney in a statement. “This $1 million attack ad won’t do a thing to save the pensions of hundreds of thousands of teachers and retirees from collapse, or give property taxpayers any relief from the ever-increasing weight of health benefits that hangs around their necks.”

A subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson that makes vascular devices plans to eliminate up to 1,000 jobs because it has lost sales to the competition, company officials said Wednesday.

As part of its decision to leave a segment of the stent business, Bridgewater-based Cordis Corp. will close its Warren research and development office by the end of the year and consolidate research teams in Fremont, Calif., officials said.

Warren administrator Mark Krane said about 150 employees work in the facility. The company wouldn’t say if they would be offered jobs elsewhere. “We are still communicating with employees on a one-on-one basis regarding their specific impact,” Cordis spokeswoman Sandra Pound said.

If only there were more Chris Christine in this world. Time for people to learn you can’t promise what you can’t pay, be it a no doc no downpayment mortgage or a ludicrously generous pension plan. Now fix social security…

Ah! Housing in the tank for another couple of years while they get all the foreclosures & attempted shorts sold to take the downward pressure off the market. This is going to take longer to play out than the most ardent bears (me included) supposed. Hobo sounding more & more accurate everyday. By the way check out the markets RED everywhere, you would think we would be flat to green after yesterdays bloodbath. Europe getting taken to the wood shed, Asia no better.

Essex, Joyce (9,12) you are both right, “perhaps” may be the operative word Essex. If states got their spending habits in check & we used the money on a short term basis to get them sound, well good. Chances of that happening small to none.
To quote a well known source “Doom is imminent”.

In judicial states, bank repossessions actually rose 1 percent month to month, as courts finally begin to get new paperwork and work through lawsuits. In New York, REO activity jumped a whopping 97 percent, and 21 percent in New Jersey.

I don’t want to say prices are starting to accelerate downward in the “borderline” towns but just picture the descent of an Airbus A350 after 10 lbs. of cyclotrimethylene trinitramine has been detonated in the cargo section of the fuselage.

Kettle in Vernon we get bears in the yard, just took my daughter to the school bus, there he was hanging out by the brook. They leave some what less desirable dropping I guess that is why prices are falling like Gary’s Airbus up here.

Missed the Italian food discussion yesterday: My Mom is 81 & makes artichokes regularly (eat your heart out) 20 at a time as everybody pounces. Yes it is gravy & my wife &/or I start early in the morn, fried meatballs before they go in the pot, yum. Some bake them ,not the same you ain’t living forever if you are going to make a pot do it right.

More fun:
“Barely noticed yesterday was Irish finmin Noonan’s call for senior bondholders in Allied Irish Banks (AIB) to take their share of losses. The announcement was made ahead of a meeting with Tim Geithner – a champion of the “no bond losses ever” policy. “Noonan must be kidding,” says a U.K. economist.”
No he ain’t kidding, things are getting real interesting across the pond.

Cal State system: It’s time to get back to teaching
Teaching at California colleges and universities is mostly farmed out to part-timers, while tenured professors’ time is occupied by research and publishing. With even more budget cuts looming, it’s time to stop this nonsense.

By Naomi Schaefer Riley

June 15, 2011
California State University, facing the possible loss of $1 billion in state funding, could close 10 campuses, turn away 85,000 students or eliminate financial aid for 100,000. In times like these, colleges and universities must consider their core missions and prioritize. Cal State is a teaching university, as opposed to the University of California schools, which are classified as research universities. But you’d never know that training students to take their place in the world was the point of the Cal State system.

The incentives for American professors are the same at every institution. Promotion and tenure decisions are made based on a record of publication, not teaching. A 2005 article by James Fairweather in the Journal of Higher Education collected the data: College professors actually get paid less the more time they spend in a classroom. This is true not only at large research universities but also at teaching universities, and even at small liberal arts colleges.
Professors will offer any number of explanations for this — like the claim that it is easier to measure the quality of research and scholarly writing than the quality of teaching — but few dispute the basic claim that teaching is not valued by the institutions. It’s a running joke on many campuses that professors who get teaching awards never get tenure.
snip

“It brings to mind a quip by Clark Kerr, the first chancellor of UC Berkeley: ‘The nice thing about part-time faculty is that they’re around part of the time.’ Which is to say, the tenured faculty are often missing in action altogether.

“But even when faculty are genuinely interested in teaching at the front of the classroom, the situation for students is pretty bleak. In some cases, he or she is with more than 200 students in a class.

Murray Sperber, a professor at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Education, has noted that professors in this situation generally offer few comments on students’ papers because anything more extensive would be too time-consuming. But jotting down ‘good job’ or ‘needs work’ at the end of one or two five-page papers (because you’d have to be crazy to assign 10 pages to that many students; many classes only get multiple-choice exams) isn’t going to improve students’ ability to make an argument or organize their thoughts.”

Good morning guys. Things are simple: while US economy collapses so does housing. There is lots of money for borrowing but very little for paying back. Prices have no touch with reality. Expect huge price chops in a neighborhood near you. Manhattan is different. Loving finance professionals buy there as a safe haven for their hard earned soon to be worthless cash.

Up waaaayyy too late last night with my FB contingent from Bruins Nation. Need coffee, but will settle for highlights on ESPN.

Finally, my beloved B’s got off the schneid. 39 years of suffering. Just sorry it had to be over Vancouver, a team I would have liked to see win it in any other year. I would have much preferred it if we stomped on Montreal or a team from NY or NJ in the Finals.

Me too, had a monster steak at Del Frescos and then headed to upstairs bar to watch the game. BTW the recession is long over, that place is huge and was packed with a wait for tables at nine pm. Amazing that their were groups of tables all girls or mixed girls/guys in their 20’s dropping $100-$200 each like it was nickles.

Up waaaayyy too late last night with my FB contingent from Bruins Nation. Need coffee, but will settle for highlights on ESPN.

Finally, my beloved B’s got off the schneid. 39 years of suffering. Just sorry it had to be over Vancouver, a team I would have liked to see win it in any other year. I would have much preferred it if we stomped on Montreal or a team from NY or NJ in the Finals.

In my hometown, boys played hockey and girls did figure-skating (although a HS classmate and friend did become the first girl ever to play boy’s varsity hockey). I grew up a rabid B’s fan (Ken Dryden is the Anti–Christ, BTW), and was a 10 YO defenseman (I still skate faster backward than forward) when the B’s last hoisted Lord Stanley’s mug. So I had known a Boston champion in my youth and there is something tougher about a 39 year drought when you remember your team being champions. Wasn’t that way for me with the Sox or Pats. I liked them but never felt the same bitterness I did over the B’s until the mid-80’s. At least we had the Celtics there for solace, but it was a long time in the wilderness.

All four professional teams from Boston have now brought home titles in a 7 year span, and some repeatedly. Unprecedented. NY has its Yankees, but there is something a lot sweeter about seeing all of your teams win in such a short span versus cheering for a one-trick pony. And for true Boston sports fans, this is sweeter in some ways than seeing the other teams win. This completes us.

I was on FB last night, and was disturbed to learn that one of my HS classmates moved to LI long ago, and became a Yankees fan. I always thought she was a few french fries short of a happy meal, and there’s proof.

Nom congrats hate the Brooins (especially milbury. espo who I consider the antichrist) since I’m an old school ranger fan , but hard not to like tim thomas. for the record the nucks were pounded into submission, they quit the minute they started getting hit last night. When the blueshirts beat them twice this year that was how it was done bears followed the example.

I like the Jets cause the Giants always diss me. Plus Manning is a prick for not visiting his home boy plax in Prison and the coach has a stick up his butt.

The Giants are a bunch of lying cheating scoundrels. The whole seat allocation for Giants pissed me off. The screwed me around for months when I was trying to buy my seats, meanwhile I said screw it and re-upped my Jets seats.

Best part opening day was sitting in row one watching Mannings head getting split open like a ripe mellon. Lots of blood splurting, but I got a good picture of his melon head from around ten feet away and it clearly indicates his head is empty. I think he is a robot controled by the coach.

I loved Dallas winning and Boston winning. I hate when teams I hate win.

Bailout part II is locked in now thanks to the very thing that brought down Lehman, and cost the US taxpayers $182 billion to bailout AIG. More Unregulated Credit Default Swaps anyone?

The funny thing until recently say late 2009 early 2010 there was little demand for Credit Default Swaps or “insurance” on government debt. The possibility that a developed country could default on its obligations always seemed remote.

The 20 somethings realize that real estate is a lousy investment that only a fool buys. Live at home with Mom and Dad for free or get a share in a rent stablized apartment in the city. The smart single 20 somethings with good college degrees are making 100K in their mid to late 20’s. Once they marry their salary doubles. With no real estate baggage or excessive leverage what does it matter if you spend all your money? Going out is a much better investment than housing.

BTW Greece is immaterial to most big US banks. It is the black swan type event that may occur due to a greek default that may catch the banks off guard and cause losses.

3B says:
June 16, 2011 at 10:05 am

#54 JJ The recession is long over??? Please give it a rest, it is getting old. The same twenty somethings that are out partying, are the same ones without a dime.

(73)
the number of people in their mid to late 20’s with 100K salaries and NO COLLEGE DEBT is probably very low
if these people are smart enough to realize housing is a lousy investment, are they smart enough not to get married that young?

#73 BTW Greece is immaterial to most big US banks. It is the black swan type event that may occur due to a Greek default that may catch the banks off guard and cause losses.

You might want to rethink that comment. expand your horizon.

The IMF will give Greece their money, even without an agreement, however, the U.S. is the largest contributor to the IMF, so we will in effect be giving them the money. But so what who cares right? I mean a big chunk of the money we gave to AIG, ended up going to GS.

Agree lots of 20 somethings living at home, and it makes sense in this environment, and I know alot of them. And none of them are making anywhere near 100K, assuming they are even working at all. Oh and they do not appear to be getting married any time soon either.

Also more layoffs coming to the “street”, but all is well in the la la land of JJ.

College Debt? Really now who would do that? Isn’t Mom and Dad supposed to pay for it? I always believe that if Mom and Dad is poor kid should get financial aid or go to cheap school which is what I did, if Mom and Dad are rich they should pay for it.
Student loans are given to irresponsible kids who have cheapskate parents.
joyce says:
June 16, 2011 at 10:45 am

(73)
the number of people in their mid to late 20′s with 100K salaries and NO COLLEGE DEBT is probably very low
if these people are smart enough to realize housing is a lousy investment, are they smart enough not to get married that young?

3B let me get this right so Greece will get the cash infusion regardless of Agreement from the IMF, the IMF being largely funded by the US who in turn is largely funded by the Chinese. Wow Lenin could have never predicted this.

#77 Alot of parents do not pay for their kids college, even though they have the Mc Mansion and Beemer or Benz. Just wait until your kids get older, and you will start to see and perhaps even be surprised as to just how no affluent so many so called affluent parents are.

However many do have a big say in where their kids go, even though they are not paying. And that is only fair, as the parents do pay for the sticker on the back of the car with the colleges name on it.

Nom if you were old enough to rember the 1972 cup (I was born that year so my memories are later) then your old enough to remember the hate. My disgust with all things Bruin started with the Milbury shoe incident, my mother sees highlights of Espo and screams at the TV still. She loved Ratelle. Like I said though, hard to hate Thomas, and Marchand reminds me of Verbeek. Don’t think you guys will repeat goalie runs like Thomas’ are usually special events, but after winning one that will last a lifetime in 94 (which feels that way) it will hold you over a good long while

If I am picking major and school I am paying. People in my town consist of broke people, union/blue collar folk who think community college is more than enough and people who never traded up homes and have no mortgage. I know a few people in my town living in starter homes the bought for like 240K back in the 90’s or even 140K back in the 80’s pulling down 500K a year with no mortgage. There is a lot of cash and little cash all on same block. Everyone thinks I am broke. I love when they tell my wife so and so must be rich, too bad we can’t be as rich. as them. My wife always laughs as why do people think you are broke if you have a used car and don’t go out to dinner every saturday night or have a nanny or go on expensive vacations each year. Maybe I don’t feel like it. Heck I know two guys in my town who pull down a seven figure salary. Like total comp of one million a year living in starter homes, one even walks to trains. Guys wear kohls clothes. Just low key guys.

3B says:
June 16, 2011 at 11:05 am

#77 Alot of parents do not pay for their kids college, even though they have the Mc Mansion and Beemer or Benz. Just wait until your kids get older, and you will start to see and perhaps even be surprised as to just how no affluent so many so called affluent parents are.

However many do have a big say in where their kids go, even though they are not paying. And that is only fair, as the parents do pay for the sticker on the back of the car with the colleges name on it.

If one has suffered ” a severe stroke that might affect breathing or ability to keep saliva, snot, etc out of the trachea,” I would assume that would be a fairly massive CVA. As for breathing beng affected, I assume that would indicate damage in the area of the medulla/pons? Or would something futher “up north” so to speak, also affect breathing, throat clearing, etc?

“[T]here is little historical evidence that any nation’s downturn was predicated on an inevitable set of political, economic, military, or cultural circumstances. There was no reason that Athens at 338 B.C. needed to lose to Philip of Macedon at the battle of Chaironeia, or even that the loss there meant the end of the freedom of the Greek city-states..

And why did a bombed out Frankfurt and Tokyo (200,000 incinerated in March 1945 alone) rather quickly out-produce a less damaged Liverpool (4,000 killed in the blitz) or another former industrial hub at Manchester? Between 1945-1949, the United Kingdom chose a path of deliberate retrenchment, redistributive large government, high taxes, and sosialism that a once flattened, and suddenly desperate Germany and Japan did not. …

By every benchmark, this present age should be an American century, here and abroad. Our known fossil fuel reserves are soaring. New finds of coal, natural gas, oil, tar sands, and oil shale keep growing, not declining. Demographically, we are expanding. In comparison, Europe, Japan, and China are shrinking, unsure of how to address an aging population, single-child families, and scores of unassimilated immigrants. …

Energy. Known reserves of natural gas just keep getting larger. The amount of oil in the Dakotas, in Texas, in Alaska, and offshore climbs too, even as cars are getting more efficient and new hybrids become more practical. There is enough natural gas (and its derivatives) to quite easily power a quarter of our fleet for a century or more. Should Americans have a president who wished to drill, utilize natural gas as a transportation fuel, and downplay subsidizing “millions of green jobs,” the nation could do wonders on the energy front..”

College Aid Checklist for Grandparents
May 25, 2011 2:38 PM, By Lynn O’Shaughnessy

There are plenty of generous grandparents out there who would love to help their grandchildren with their college costs. While that’s a wonderful instinct, the last thing that parents want is for grandma and grandpa’s generosity to wreck a child’s chances for financial aid. But there are ways around this. Below, I share seven tips that will allow grandparents to safely contribute to their grandkids’ college education.

No. 1: First, determine whether you’ll qualify for financial aid

If a family isn’t going to qualify for any need-based financial aid, it won’t matter how grandparents help out. These grandparents can save through a college account like a 529 savings plan, load up on savings bonds, make tuition payments directly to the school or help in some other way. It makes no difference what the grandparents do since the grandchild won’t be getting need-based assistance from a college.

No 2: Delaying grandparent help

If a family hopes to qualify for financial aid, grandparents should consider delaying any contributions towards defraying their grandchild’s college costs until at least the end of the student’s junior year in college.

Why wait until then? Because the family will have completed the final financial aid application for their child’s last year in college. So after that point, the college will no longer be asking about any windfall that a student receives from his or her grandparents.

If a child ends up taking more than four years to graduate — and many do — grandparents should postpone their contribution until the last aid application is filed regardless of when that is.

To be even safer, grandparents might want to wait until the child is nearing his or her college graduation. That’s because the federal government audits a certain number of financial aid applications every year and parents don’t want to have to explain why the assets may be considerably more than when the aid application was filed.

No. 3: Be careful with 529 plans

Here is the good news for grandparents who save through 529 college accounts: parents don’t have to divulge any grandparent 529 accounts when they complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid or FAFSA. The FAFSA is the yearly form that parents must fill out to be eligible for financial aid.

While this sounds great, there is a troubling catch. When grandparents tap into a 529 plan to help pay for college expenses, the parents of the student must report this cash as untaxed income on their FAFSA. This income can shrink aid eligibility by as much as half of the money pulled out of the 529 account. Ouch!

No. 4: Avoid a 529 plan disaster

Again, you can avoid the potential 529 withdrawal fiasco if you ask the grandparents to wait to tap into this college account until after the student’s last financial aid form has been filed. Another solution is to have the grandparents transfer the money from their 529 plan into a 529 account that the parents own. For financial aid purposes, the money in a 529 plan controlled by the student’s parents is assessed at the far more favorable rate of 5.64 percent.

No. 5: Understand the PROFILE exception

You just read that the FAFSA doesn’t care if a grandparent is squirreling money away in a 529 plan as long as that money isn’t actually tapped for college.

However, a less common financial aid application, the CSS/Financial Aid PROFILE, does care about the existence of grandparent 529 plans.

The PROFILE will ask about the existence of any college accounts that name the student as a beneficiary. This won’t be an issue for the vast majority of families since only 270 mostly private colleges and universities use the PROFILE. You can find the list of these colleges by Googling “PROFILE.”

No. 6: Beware of Custodial Accounts

What if grandparents have stashed funds in an UGMA or UTMA account in the child’s name? This isn’t a wise thing to do because the money is considered an asset of the child. And this is true regardless of whether parents or grandparents have established the custodial account.

The money in a custodial account will reduce a child’s financial aid eligibility by 20 percent of the total. Parents are expected to report the existence of any custodial account for the student on the FAFSA, and that’s true even if a grandparent established it.

To defuse this time bomb, a grandparent can transfer the money in a UGMA or UTMA into a custodial 529 account. Once that’s done, the money will be treated as a parent asset and, as such, the cash will be assessed at a maximum of 5.64 percent.
No. 7: Avoid making direct payments to a college

Grandparents also should not make direct tuition payments to a college. That’s because a college can reduce its financial aid to the child — dollar for dollar.

Bottom Line:Helping a grandchild with college costs can be a tremendous gift, but just be sure your clients do it right.

Back in the mid 90’s I used to live in Nutley and work in midtown. Bus was the fastest way in and out of the city, due to the dedicated bus lane during rush hour. On hot summer days I would grab a 16 ounce Bud (unopened) from the guy just inside Port Authority selling them from one of those big buckets filled with ice. I would crack it open half way through the Lincoln Tunnel from my seat half way back in the full commuter bus to the instant jealous head swivel of every other guy aboard. None of the women seemed to notice but every guy knew pitch-perfect what that sound was.

Apparently Credit Suisse will cut “several hundred jobs” in the investment bank, with the layoffs taking place in the US and Switzerland. It’s unclear when the Swiss plan to go ahead with the axings, though presumably it’ll be at some point in the next week or so. [Bloomberg via BI]

Brown announced the veto in a press release Thursday. “Unfortunately, the budget I have received is not a balanced solution,” his statement said. “It continues big deficits for years to come and adds billions of dollars of new debt. It also contains legally questionable maneuvers, costly borrowing and unrealistic savings. Finally, it is not financeable and therefore will not allow us to meet our obligations as they occur.”

Wallpaper is the tool of the devil. Just spent 5 straight hours removing it from a 12 x12 room. Good riddance. Beautiful bright yellow paint was behind it and surprisingly, the walls are in good shape. Now to shower.

Shore 112 – Of course she will. And this is why moderates like myself have such a hard time pulling the lever for the GOP.

In other news, I’d like to announce that the homeschooling/attachment parenting/cloth diapering/baby wearing contingent of my family has expanded and is now also very proudly in the anti-vaccination and homebirthing camp.

Gator this is why I always vote libertarian. 1 social issues christian loonies 2 Neocon warmongers 3 they are the conservative wing of the jacka$$ party.

sorry about the relatives, some people would just about believe anything, so when your poor niece or nephew develops German measels or rubella they will be screaming why medical science did not do more to prevent their sick kid from injury or harm. Apparently the Earth is still flat as well

ATLANTA—Republican Gov. Nathan Deal suggested that unemployed people on probation fill thousands of jobs that farmers say have been left vacant by laborers frightened off by Georgia’s tough new immigration law.

His suggestion, made Tuesday, came as the state released a survey showing a shortage of about 11,000 farm laborers at the beginning of the harvest season for many crops. The new law, set to go into effect July 1, requires businesses with 10 employees or more to use a federal database to ensure employees are legally allowed to …

OMG!
Brewmasters Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head, Leonardo Di Vincenzo of Del Borgo and Teo Musso of
Baladin met three years ago and quickly formed a bond based on good beer in good company. The bond
quickly became a brotherhood and the three brewers aptly named themselves the Birreria Brothers. La
Birreria di Eataly puts their collective years of experience and of “off-centeredness” to the test with three
cask-conditioned ales exclusively brewed on our rooftop brewery. In the spirit of Eataly, La Birreria’s
in-house ales are inspired by ingredients and by Italian character. They are made with the finest raw
materials like American and European malted barley, the freshest hops and unique spices. Each beer is
traditionally brewed and served through a hand pump at the perfect temperature to capture its full flavor.http://eatalyny.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/BIRRERIA-MENU.pdf

Juice (117) – Of course. You must carry your baby at all times. And make them happy at all times. How else will they learn to trust and depend on you? Not sure how she is going to wear the 3 year old, 2 year old and newborn simultaneously while homeschooling the almost 7 year old.

Oh and if you let your 7 year old witness your live birth and cut the cord, does that count as homeschool science for the week? Or do you have to get you a*s out of bead and actually get to the homeschool co-op meeting?

There are a million “mommy” blogs out there, some “Daddy” blogs too. Writing about parenting is big. Maybe it’s a way for parents to vent. The book Go The F**k To Sleep is very popular right now. Samuel Jackson just recorded an audio version that I think is brilliant. (If the “F” word bothers you, don’t click on the link) Maybe parents write about their kids to feel like they aren’t alone. It’s nice to find other parents who admit to yelling too much, not feeding their kids organic, or hating playdates.

So it’s not a shock that kids are starting to blog. Lily, a 4-year-old who is fed up with being exploited by her mom’s “Mommy Blog,” tells her side of the story in Bedtimes Are For Suckers.

In her first blog post, Lily says:

Although I’ve only been on this earth four short years, I’ve learned one thing: You moms sure like to complain. From what I can tell, the whole “mommy blogging” world is one never-ending b*tch-fest about how us kids get on your nerves. Did you ever think maybe hanging out with you guys is no picnic either?

Hey, being a mom isn’t that challenging. I’m a mom to a baby myself. Madison, (named after an acquaintance at my preschool who pees her pants at least 3 times a day but besides that she’s pretty cool) eats anything I give her, never has tantrums and doesn’t complain when I forcibly hold her head underwater. Being a mom is EASY.

Lily writes about a lot of things that bug her. Like how her mother doesn’t pay attention to her because she’s on her iPhone all the time. Titled, Mommy, Put Down the Goddamn iPhone , Lily complains , “I swear she looks at the thing about a gazillion times a day. And for what? Does a women in her 40′s really need to see who responded to her Facebook status? Who really gives a sh*t? Facebook was designed for college students not middle-aged women who waited way too long to have children.”

Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC), the largest U.S. home lender, said it was exiting the business of reverse mortgages because of the possibility that property values will decline further, displacing as many as 1,000 employees.

Best present to give to an expectant mom is door locks, and telling them that after a few months after they’ve shown they can sleep through the night, you let the kid learn how to cry his/herself to sleep if they wake up/don’t go to bed, which later turns into learning how to go to bed by his/herself, which later turns into general ability to function independently in life.
No “co-sleeping” arrangements for me. Have a niece that couldn’t sleep through the night without running to her mommy half the time up through age 12-13 at last count, probably because her bedroom was just for show the first 6-7 yrs of her life. I think my sister in law was using my niece as a subtle contraceptive device for her now ex-husband.

“Pandora Media shares plunged as much as 25 percent Thursday, sending it below its IPO price and burning investors who had once clamored for a piece of what was touted as a red-hot sale”

snip

Shares closed at $13.26, down $4.16 or 24 percent, on the New York Stock Exchange. This is below the $16 per share IPO price, meaning investors who bought the stock as it went public have lost money.

snip

BTIG analyst Richard Greenfield put a sell rating on the stock and a $5.50 price target on it.

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So, if the old price was $16 and the price has dropped 25%, is it a screaming deal? Well, not if one expects the price to drop well below its current price. Enough of the media, and others, shouting about housing being a real bargain now that prices have dropped. I just don’t think that it is true. Someone may need to buy but buying because one needs to is not the same thing as getting “a deal” on the item.

“Well you probably had a lot more fun than I did. I spent part of the later hours of the evening reading a paper written by The Bernank in 1999 titled “Japanese Monetary Policy: A Case of Self-Induced Paralysis?” While I have never doubted for a second that this man will print the dollar into oblivion, I have been shocked by the amount of players in the market that have fallen for what I like to call the “Bernank Bluff,” which simply is my view that he needs cover to print more and therefore will tell the market he is going to stop while QE2 is still in action so that he can push undesirable asset price inflation down (commodities) while continuing to print! I went and read this paper to confirm what I already knew about this man. Namely, that he is an extremely dangerous psychopath who believes proper monetary policy can save the world from all ills and he is the superman that will implement the appropriate policies for the first time in history. This is how he sees himself. In reality, he is nothing more than a parlor magician brainwashed by his own bullshit and who is doing nothing novel, but rather the same thing all bankrupt governments have done since the beginning of time. He is merely printing money and causing devastating inflation, yet he seems to think he is the first person to come up with this idea!”

“So the biggest bond guy on the planet (Gross), the same guy that has repeatedly been saying there won’t be QE3 apparently “tweets” that the Fed could actually move to rate caps on 2-3 year treasuries which is actually QE to infinity (as predicted by me and many others). So why would he tweet this rather than just wait until his next monthly letter? Well he is a pretty connected guy and there is a Fed meeting next week. He also isn’t the type of fellow that likes to look like a fool in public so clearly he wanted to put this “out there” so he is seen as on top of things. While many people are talking about this, people don’t seem to be getting the joke. If this is indeed the Fed’s next step, it is a game changer beyond game changers. First of all it would mean a policy to print infinite money if necessary without having to announce further rounds of QE. Even more importantly, I am willing to bet that wherever the Fed announces a rate cap along the curve will be exactly where the Chinese holdings of treasuries are situated. The Chinese probably told Tiny Timmy Geithner and The Bernank that they want out and this would guarantee them an out at the highs! It’s brilliant. Plus, with the terms of trade going against China and other Asian nations as a result of higher commodity prices, this will provide much need cash to then go buy up resources all over the world. This would make commodity prices absolutely explode through the roof as China would without a doubt use a lot of this money to buy the necessities of life and then subsidize them at home to quell unrest. How is no one talking about this!”

re #136 – Kreiger fails to mention what the Chinese are going to buy, which will be Oil. China is growing 8-10% a year to fuel that demand they will need energy. Projections are 150 percent increase in Oil imports 2020.

“unless chinese and local bank professionals are interested or it provides some security from the mob it’s worthless like your 401k.”
4c. Chinese indians and europeans see 30-40% crash in us home prices in addition to a 30% crash in dollar. Hell yes they’re coming in. Paying 30 cents on the dollar too.